


Autochrome Photography

by ThetenthtenbeingofTen



Series: Luca and Mari [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Harmony - Freeform, Love, Melancholy, The Center of the World (Andreas Steinhöfel) mentioned, Twins, a quiet morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 14:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20193709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThetenthtenbeingofTen/pseuds/ThetenthtenbeingofTen
Summary: A morning that feels like an Autochrome photography...A lonely twin... and a book.





	Autochrome Photography

**Author's Note:**

> _... The dyed starch grains are somewhat coarse, giving a hazy, pointillist effect, with faint stray colors often visible, especially in open light areas such as skies. The smaller the image, the more noticeable these effects are. Autochrome has been touted as “the colour of dreams.” The resulting "dream-like" impressionist quality may have been one reason behind the enduring popularity of the medium even after more starkly realistic color processes had become available... _ (Wikipedia, Autochrome Lumière)
> 
> I read Andreas Steinhöfel's book in the original German version. It is written in such a beautiful way, somehow capturing the hazy, almost dreamlike quality of childhood memories. If an Autochrome photography was a story, that is what it would be like, I think.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This piece is written from Lucas' POV, and it is actually a translation of a OS I wrote long ago in German.
> 
> With that said, please enjoy!

This morning feels vapid. Maybe it would feel more meaningful if it wasn’t so early.

I can’t tell when I start to notice the sharp beams of the morning sun. It’s impossible to pinpoint the moment when sleep fades into wakefulness.

I rub my eyes, getting rid of the gunk in the inner corner of my eye and wipe my hand on my pajama pants. That same rusty feeling in my body makes me cringe, and so I stretch my limps almost to the point of pain.  
Just as I mentally kick myself for not being careful, as my movements could wake my brother, I realize that his spot on the bed is empty.  
I’m alone in bed.

The ever so familiar sight of my sleeping brother, or at least his warm, gleaming eyes as he sleepily watches me wake up are nowhere to be found.  
I touch the sheet.

He sweated as he lay here, the slightly damp fabric having lost all of his warmth. We do need better sheets, the fabric feels almost coarse and cold.  
Our bed – his bed, but I sleep here too, so it’s _our_ bed – is positioned in an awkward spot, but do I care? No.  
But this morning, I do.

Where is he?

I get up, avoiding the shelf that is so intelligently placed just above the bed, in perfect head-smacking-height. I stretch my back, closing my eyes against the brief sliver of blackness around me that tries to draw me back to bed.

I look out the window, where I’m greeted by the strangely sepia-tinted world outside. I know the colors of the street, the houses and cars will fade into cold grey, broken only by a few spots of green and orange.  
The deceptive warmth of the morning light will fade in time.

A strange, hard to grasp melancholy takes hold of me. I need to find and see him.  
_Right now!_ I think to myself.  
I run a hand through my hair and leave my younger twin’s room. In the past I probably used to tell myself that I needed to protect him in his sleep, because I’m the older twin… but I have long since that little half-truth.

I’m here, because it’s _his_ room.

I walk down the empty hallway. Behind me is the door to the other bedroom, where Tobi and Robin sleep. I throw a glance behind myself. The door is shut. They are still sleeping, but that’s not a surprise.

I keep walking down the worn out, rather ugly carpet that simply refuses to lie straight, one edge always pushing up against the wall when it should lay flat… 

I peek into the kitchen, but my twin isn’t here. There isn’t even coffee brewing yet. Usually that’s the first thing he does when he wakes.  
I walk a bit faster towards the living room, past the little bend, where the hallway curves around the bathroom and… stop.

I hear the quiet, dry voice of the man I’d been looking for.

I can tell that it’s not because he’s whispering that his voice falters every other sentence.

I nudge the living room door, and he falls silent. He looks at me, before I’ve even fully stepped into the room, as though he could sense my presence without needing to see me.

The look in is eyes is strangely raw.

I stop, giving him time to lower his eyes to the page of the book on his knees again.

He does so after a few seconds and resumes his recital. I finally get it. He’s reading _The Center of the World_, and the more he reads the more his voice breaks; his breath stills and starts.

His curled up body looks as though it had been sucked dry and shoved away; his drawn up, long, slender legs barely fit on the seat of the chair.  
And yet he’d vehemently refuse if I suggested that he could sit more comfortably.

It’s as though he’s sunken deep into himself; the story and his thoughts on it. Like he’s trying to contain them all by squeezing himself into the tight space on the chair.

I don’t dare to approach him as he puts the book down on the open page and leans his face into his empty hand.

He rises and approaches me.  
We’re only a few steps apart, and yet he walks with the same grace as usual. We may be twins, identical copies of each other, but we are different.

There’s a flow, almost a rhythm to his movements that were ingrained in him through countless hours of dance-training; and even his sunken posture can’t hide the elegance.

He walks towards me until he can lean on me, and as though there were a force stronger than mere gravity pulling him down, he slumps heavily against me.  
His arms wrap around my neck, as though it were impossibly exhausting, as though he had no strength, as though he barely stood upon his feet at all.

His voice is hoarse as he speaks my name.

“Yes?” I reply, realizing that I sound just as hoarse.

He falls silent.  
Mutely he pulls me closer, hides his face against me as if he was going to cry in heavy sobs, tears falling onto my shoulder… but all he does is breathe.

Instead of tears I feel his lips, his nose, his cheek against my shoulder, and maybe it’s just me, but I imagine feeling something wet on my naked shoulder too. He seems haunted and restless, but deadly exhausted at the same time.

I wrap my arms around him, hands mapping the contours of his spine, shoulder blades and ribs beneath his skin.  
“Wait a second,” I say and let him go.

I go to the couch that has long since lost it’s royal blue lustre and pick up the tan blanket that was carelessly thrown over the curved backrest.

I wrap the blanket around myself and offer him my hand. “Let’s go outside,” I say softly and wait for his cool fingertips to touch the warm palm of my hand.  
I pull him with me to the balcony and step outside with my bare feet.

Our thin pajama pants aren’t enough to keep warm this morning, hence why I took the blanket.

I guide Mari to one plastic lounge chair that stands in the middle of the dusty balcony. Everything here has been washed out by too many rainfalls, but it doesn’t matter.  
I sit on the chair and gently tug Mari down on top of me, so he’ll sit in my lap. He curls up against me, his heavy head resting against my chest.  
I wrap the blanket around us both.

Even through the fabric of my pants I can feel his cold feet resting against my shins.

I can’t see his face. When I try to lower my head his hair tickles my chin. I hear his quiet breathing as he slowly relaxes.  
He feels heavier than he looks, his hard, bony body presses into mine uncomfortably, but somehow that calms me down too.

He is here.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this little piece, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, I'd be super happy if you left me Kudos or a comment!
> 
> I don't want to give away too much in this one chapter, but there is more to the twins than I could show here. Feel free to read about them in their other stories!


End file.
